We’re excited to celebrate the launch of a new MetroQuest Site! The Maine Department of Transportation (DOT) is inviting residents to provide public input for the State’s Long Range Transportation Plan Update.

The results from this survey will help shape the future of transportation across Maine through to 2050, with a focus on providing the safest and most reliable transportation system possible.

Maine, not unlike the rest of the United States, is experiencing several issues affecting transportation. Public input from this survey will provide guidance and insight on the strategies needed to achieve MaineDOT’s transportation goals by supporting a data-driven approach to address the many challenges facing the State over the next 20-30 years.

Let’s take a look inside their MetroQuest Site!

The online public survey was designed around the 8 key trends that MaineDOT anticipates will impact transportation in upcoming years: the aging population, labor markets, global trade, urbanization, tourism, technology, safety, and climate. Residents of Maine are being asked to comment on these issues and to rank the top 5 most influential trends.

The issues selected by survey participants here determine what questions each participant is asked on the following MetroQuest Screen, creating an individualized survey experience that’s customized to each participant’s interests and priorities.

MaineDOT chose the Strategy Rating Screen to allow residents to rate how effective they feel various strategies could be in dealing with the trends they prioritized. For example, if they ranked “Evolving Technology” as an important trend, they are able to rate 5 different potential ways to make transportation more intelligent, including autonomous vehicles, smart infrastructure, ride-hailing, shared mobility, and electric vehicles.

The data collected with the Strategy Rating Screen will help MaineDOT make the right transportation investments in areas that the public supports.

As all planners know too well, transportation budgets are finite, so it’s important for residents to understand that investments in certain areas will affect fund availability for other projects. MaineDOT chose the Tradeoff Screen next to educate residents about their options. Participants must decide, for example, between improving safety and signage or investing in new intelligent technologies to make travel more safe and secure.

Participants are providing more informed input on the issues while gaining a better appreciation of the limitations to their decisions … there may not be budget or time for every possible solution.

Demographic questions are presented at the end (rather than at the start) of the survey experience, when participants are most invested and therefore most likely to provide personal information. With data about the geolocation of residents (via zip codes) and their current transportation behavior, MaineDOT will have the information needed to best address the needs and preferences of different communities.

MaineDOT anticipates the final plan to be complete late this fall. We’re eager to see how the actionable results from this public involvement effort will help shape their next LRTP!